Rick, all alone on a perfect day.
"....above all the powerlessness and suspense, the ball held, the ball directed, the ball traveling away like a son, beyond any hope of influence."
-Denis Johnson
"....renouncing clean
The faith they have in tennis, and tall stockings,
Short blister'd breeches, and those types of travel"
-Lovell
King Henry VIII
Act 1, Scene 3
We were out on the courts early one morning, in the fog, and the club was redolent with ghosts, the ghosts of warmth and sunlight and, it seemed, the season. Ghosts played in the fog: Alex, Joe, Jeff, Jim, Faith, Craig, Julie, Tim, Ina, Michael. Ghost balls, ghost rackets. Rowdy ghost sounds. Yup, it's all winding down,isn't it? The courts are still open, not only playable, but near perfect. And some hardy souls are out here, early in the frosty morning - this morning, this frosty morning - playing away. In shorts. White shorts.
Don't give up.
The clinics have been very lightly attended. Please call the club or Rick if you're interested in coming.
We're planning a Bill Crusco tribute page for the last newspage of the year. Your contributions, short, long, anecdotal, poignant, heart-breaking, unverifiable, are welcome.
| The club's closing party will take place on Sunday, Nov. 11, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. (The last day of play.) |
The 'dedicated court' is gone for the rest of the year.
Alert: If you park your car on Mt. Auburn St. in the evening or, even worse, overnight, you risk having your windshield smashed and your car looted. A CTC member, playing in the last round robin, was a recent victim. And we notice, of a morning, some shattered windshields. The street there is between parks. (No one can hear your windshield shatter, and, at night, there are few passers-by.)
The staff kindly requests that members observe the rules regarding advance reservations. (Advance reservations may be made from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and again from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.) Please don't try to trick the staff, or cajole, confuse, or conjure the staff into giving you an advance reservation at, say, 7:59.99999. No heart breaking stories, please. (My llama is sick. I have to rush her to... I can't wait 'til eight. My Volvo just blew up. I have to save my children. My Golden Retriever just...)
The old house clock was triangulated to the mighty atomic clock in Berne and the Great Cartesian Grid Clock in Oblivia, but now in 2007, we are even more accurate: we use our cell phones and Lennie Singer's cell phone. Lennie's is state of the art. It is something to behold. It just radiates precision. Reservations are not taken until the 8:00 a.m. flashes across the face of what are possibly the most precise timepieces on the planet (and perhaps beyond).
William Gibson, of Neuromancer fame, said that the future is already here, but that it isn't evenly distributed. CTC has its share: a wireless router. So, if you have a wireless card on your laptop and you want to go somewhere, check with the staff about our password and send your avatar off on adventures.
The club book should be in your hands by now. Much of the information in the book is updated and available on the website.
Some useful links:
Here's a link to the espn site, with pro ranking.
And a club member (let's call him Sol) suggested a link to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I. The site is rich.
We still have the tournament draws (from 2001 to 2004) available on-line (including all of the results), thanks to the Java Kid. We are re-locating the links, however.
"On the court, tennis players exchange not only ground strokes but lots of information. It's a richly interactive sport, both verbally and non-verbally. If players communicate clearly, simply, and consistently, the game will proceed more quickly, and with less fuss and misunderstanding. Here are a few guidelines that can make the game more fun, friendly, and fair for all...."
We've had some requests to run Craig Lambert's piece, sampled above, on Tennis Communication. (We'd better leave this link up on the newspage permanently.)
Take a look
Yearbook link will take you to the last newspage from 2006. From there you can see the whole of the Persistent Archive of last year's news.
Website Note: The time and temperature icon below is a link to a Boston weather site.
Webmaster.
Website Note II: The honey-comb icon is also a link. It takes the clicker to an archive of all the past news pages so that said clicker can read the news pages for the whole year (2006). The less-than link (<) next to the honeycomb icon will take clickers to the previous issue of this year's newspage. (Skywriter is for Initiates.)
